LIBRARY^ CONGRESS. 

Shelf ." 



i>iiEisEi3sra::E3D sr^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






PHILADELPHIA 



Social Science Association. 



Our Present Race Deterioration ; 



AN ARGUMENT FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



READ BEFORE THE ABOVE ASSOCIATION, FEBRUARY I3TH, 1 8/9. 



v' 



A. C. REMBAUGH, M. D, 



Reprint from PENN MONTHL Y for April, iSyg. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

PHILADELPHIA SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, 

720 LOCUST STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 






THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE PAPERS READ BEFORE THE 

ASSOCIATION. 



1 871. Compulsory Education. By Lorin Blodget. Out of print. 
Arbitration as a Re?nedy for Strikes. By Eckley B. Coxe. 

The Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania. By R. C. McMurtrie. Out of print. 
Local Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
Injant Mortality. By Dr. J. S. Parry. 

1872. Statute Law and Co?n??ion Law, and the Proposed Revision in Pennsylvania. 

By E. Spencer Miller. Out of print. 
Apprenticeship. By James S. Whitney. 
The Proposed Ameftd?nents to the Constitution of Pennsylvania. By Francis 

Jordan. , \ 

Vaccination. By Dr. J. S. Parry. , v \ |, ^ 

The Census. By Lorin Blodget. ' \ \ 

1873. The Tax System of Pennsylvania. By Cyrus Elder. 

The Work of the Constitutional Convention. By A. Sydney Biddle. 

What shall Philadelphia do with its Paupers ? By Dr. Isaac Ray. 

Proportional Representation. By S. Dana Horton. 

Statistics Relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, etc., in Philadelphia. By 
John Stockton-Hough, M.D. 

On the Value of Original Scientific Research. By Dr. Ruschenberger. 

On the Relative Influence of City and Country Life, on Mo7'ality, Health, Fe- 
cundity, Longevity and Mortality . By John Stockton-Hough, M.D. 

1874. The Public School System of Philadelphia. By James S. Whitney. 
The Utility of Government Geological Surveys. By Prof. J. P. Lesley. 
The Law of Partnership. By J. G. Rosengarten. 

Methods of Valuation of Real Estate for Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
The Merits of Crejuation. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 
Outlines of Penology. By Joseph R. Chandler. 

1875. Brain Disease, and Modern Living. By Dr. Isaac Ray. Out of print. 
Hygiene of the Eye, Considered with Reference to the Children in our Schools. 

By Dr. F. D. Castle. 
77^1? Relative Morals of City and Country. By Wm. S. Pierce. 
Silk Culture and Home Industry. By Dr. Samuel Chamberlaine. 
Mind Reading, etc. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

Legal Status of Married Women in Pennsylvania. By N. D. Miller. 
The Revised Statutes of the United States. By Lorin Blodget. 

1876. Training of Nurses for the Sick. By John H. Packard, M.D. 

The Advantages of the Co-operative Feature of Building Associations. By 

Edmund Wrigley. 
The Operations of our Building Associations. By Joseph I. Doran. 
Wisdofu in Charity. By Rev. Charles G. Ames. 

1877. Free Coinage and a Self- Adjusting Ratio. By Thomas Balch. 
Building Systems for Great Cities. By Lorin Blodget. 
Metric System. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

1878. Cause and Cure of Hard Times. By R. J. Wright. 
House-Drainage and Sewerage By George E. Waring, Jr. 

A r lea for a State Board of Health. By Benjamin Lee, M. D. 
The Gertn Theory of Disease, and its Present Bearing upon Public and Per- 
sonal Hygiene. By Joseph G. Richardson, M.D. 

1879. Delusive Methods of Municipal Financiering. By W. H. Ford. 
Technical Education. By A. C. Reml^augh, M.D. 



OUR PRESENT RACE DETERIORATION: AN ARGU- 
MENT FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



THE subject chosen for discussion may be considered extra- 
medical, yet it must be allowed that a doctor's field of 
observation and discussion ought to be practically unlimited. 
Any thing, indeed, which concerns the prosperity of his age, is one 
he is called upon to investigate. Medicine alone will never cure 
all the ills that flesh is heir to. The laws of Physiology must be 
known, to promote health and healthful civilization. Any race or 
nation which does not know and observe such laws, must degen- 
erate. Our school teachers and children should, from their earli- 
est years, be thoroughly rooted and grounded in them. 

This, as well as other important scientific knowledge, could 
readily be made attractive through Pantographic object lessons. 
Exercises and charts could be made the vehicle for conveying solid 
information to replace the nonsense now made use of in first 
lessons. 

It is perfectly patent to all thinking persons, that our popular 
education is not the panacea for all the ills that afflict society, as 
has been fondly believed. It requires no special observation, ex- 
cept to the wilfully blind, to see plainly enough race deterioration 
going on around us. Prisons and prisoners, almshouses, paupers 
and tramps, insane asylums and insane. The increasing demand 
for hospitals, reformatories and all such institutions are multiplying, 
out of proportion to the increase of population. Consumption and 
other scrofulous diseases can readily be traced as the direct result 
of our education. 

A.n excess of two or three hours study a day for all children 
under twelve years of age, is absolute cruelty. Two or three 
hours mental work daily, throughout the year, would be better than 
the present system. It would reach all classes, especially those for 
whom the public schools were particularly intended, the unschooled 
twenty thousand, and the sixty per cent, of our children who 
graduate from our primaries and secondaries. Poor parents cannot 
afford to give the whole time of their children to the schools, and 
it is better for the child's morals and future usefulness that they 
cannot. Some kind of handicraft should be begun in the primary 



school and should follow the pupil all the way through, as it would 
generally benefit both the moral and physical culture. 

The time under twelve years should be divided thus, to insure 
future health and usefulness : — Twelve hours in bed ; three at men- 
tal, three at manual work ; and six in open-air exercises of some 
kind, — cultivating the soil the most invigorating. Crowding into 
cities of all, and especially the poor, should be discouraged. Each 
family should have its own plot of ground for the exercise and 
work of the children. 

A child can be reared to be healthful and industrious, while to 
cure a diseased body or reform the criminal is a very doubtful 
matter ; therefore, look well to the children. 

Under a rational education they would grow up and find their 
pleasure in more elevating and less debasing amusements than now 
gratify them. There is no valid reason why education should not 
go on for life, instead of stopping at eight, ten, twelve or fifteen, on 
account of broken-down health, headache, ruined eyes, or any 
other cause. Acquiring a thorough education should be as natural 
and physiological a process as eating or breathing. 

"Of 731 collegiate scholars, 296, or 40 per cent., suffered fre- 
quent "headache. Of 3,564 scholars of public schools, 974, or 27.3 
per cent., suffered from headache. Bleeding from the nose was found 
in 20 per cent. Spinal diseases were found in 20 per cent., and of 
these, 84.9 per cent, were females." 

" One hundred and forty-six physicians of Massachusetts have 
declared that our system of education promotes consumption." 

**To tens of thousands that are killed, add hundreds of thous- 
ands that survive with feeble constitutions, and millions that grow 
up with constitutions not so strong as they should be, and you will 
have some idea of the curse infliicted on their offspring by parents 
ignorant of the laws of life. Do but consider for a moment, that 
the regimen to which children are subject is hourly telling upon 
them, to their life-long injury or benefit, and that there are twenty 
ways of going wrong to one way of going right, and you will get 
some idea of the enormous mischief that is almost everywhere 
inflicted by the thoughtless, hap-hazard system in common use. 
Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed in some flimsy short dress, 
and be allowed to go playing about with limbs reddened by cold ? 
The decision will tell on his whole future existence, — either in ill- 



5 

ness or in stunted growth, or in deficient energy, or in a maturity 
less vigorous than it ought to have been, and consequent hindran- 
ces to success and happiness, and inflict disease and premature 
death, not only on him, but on his descendants."— Herbert Spen- 
cer. 

Mr. Hilary Bygrave says, of our young people : — 
'* It there is one thing more than another lacking in the young 
people of our time, it is force of character, self-reliance, courage 
to meet and grapple with the stern realities of life. Never, per- 
haps, were young people so well cared for, so well clad, so well 
educated, in the technical sense ; never was the path of life made 
so smooth before them ; and yet there seems to be a feeling that 
they are wanting in the grit, endurance, independence and force 
which belonged to former generations." 
Another author says : — 

1. ''That the public school does not go down low enough into 
the strata of humanity to affect the very classes that have most 
need of it. 

2. ''That school instruction deals too much with technical 
scholarship, and too little with practical utilities. 

3. "That a knowledge of some form of industrial labor is at 
least as necessary as a knowledge of books." 

Mr. Wendell Phillips says: — 

" The fact is, that many young people, graduates of our public 
schools, are not capable of doing any work for which anyone 
should pay a dollar; nor can they write a decent letter, nor 
even read a newspaper well. The old New England system, 
which made a boy work six months by his father's side, on the 
farm or in the workshop, after he had been six months at school, 
was better than the present one. From such a system it was possi- 
ble to get such a man as Theodore Parker. Now the public school 
hands a child to its parents with no means of earning its bread." 

The following is a sample of the language used by the various 
prison authorities of our country in their annual reports: 

" Millions are annually expended in this state (Connecticut), to 
secure our youth the advantages of a good common school educa- 
tion, with the general impression that such instruction is a sure 
preventive of crime. Without intending the slightest reflection 
against this happy conclusion, we find our penitentiaries are filling 



6 

up with many well-educated young men, who, on investigation, 
have never been indentured to any regular trade or business, and, 
without employment, are easily led into temptation and vice. 

" On careful inquiry of our younger prisoners, we find it is not 
the want of a common school education, so much as the need of a 
good trade, with its habits of thrift, industry and common employ- 
ment, that crowds our streets with paupers and our state prisons 
with convicts. With these facts staring us in the face, from all 
the jails, work-houses and penitentiaries of our state, is it not time 
for some legislation to restore the old apprentice system, with its 
binding indentures, legal protection, and encouragement in the 
effort to acquire some mechanical trade or business education ?" 

Here is another startling view of our educational shortcomings, 
presented by the Louisville Conner -Journal. It thus speaks of 
the mighty host of untaught children : 

" There are fifteen millions of children in the United States, who 
may be classed under the head of school children. Of these, are 
enrolled in public schools about nine millions, and the average 
daily attendance is only about four million, two hundred and fifty 
thousand. It follows that some millions of children in this country 
do not have school training of any kind. This is a dark picture, 
and one which, in view of the law of universal suffrage, becomes 
very appalling. We may assume that six millions of children are 
either in public or private schools. This pupil host represents the 
forces which are to rule their country hereafter." 

It is estimated that there are about twenty thousand children 
in this city who live in the alleys and by-ways, who are schooled 
in nothing but vice and crime, who are thus especially prepared to 
graduate at some near day from our criminal, pauper, or benevo- 
lent institutions, forever during their brief, diseased existence, 
supported at the expense of the community. It does seem that 
the state should take entire possession of these waifs of humanity, 
from their earliest infancy, and educate them in a way that they 
will be a source of revenue instead of an expense ; for, sooner or 
later, they must come under our care. 

I think it behooves our churches to lend a helping hand in this 
matter. It is not all of Christianity to be so interested in the sal- 
vation of one's own soul that the care of others is neglected, — to 
listen to able and eloquent sermons on Sundays, in imposing edi- 



7 

fices, in very comfortable pews, with the soul lulled to sleep by 
charming music, followed by the discussion of a sumptuous repast. 
I think the Lord Avould be served in a far more acceptable manner, 
by opening these very buildings, if no others could be had, and 
using them for school houses on week days. They had better be 
daily filled with the din of hammer and saw of these twenty thou- 
sand neglected children, than have them grow up to enlarge the 
crowd of criminals. I should like also to include the sixty per 
cent, of children who graduate from our primaries and secondaries 
with an indistinct knowledge of what has been hum.orously called 
" the three R's," so often followed by the fourth R., rascality. All 
these children should be taught more of Nature and of Nature's 
God, so that as they run they might read, and 

" Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

It is absolute cruelty to keep them housed five hours a day, in 
crowded, poorly ventilated class rooms, except for a dinner hour and 
a few minutes' intermission. (I have seen the children turned out 
on these occasions from the hot room into the open air, without hat 
or overcoat, the coldest of winter days, at the risk of contracting 
cold.) Two or three hours a day in the class and two or three 
hours a day in the work-shop, is the only rational way to educate 
children to grow up and be healthful and useful citizens, and this 
might solve the problem for a portion of the twenty thousand un- 
schooled. Two or three hours study, and the rest of the time to 
help their parents. Let this plan be carried through every day of 
the year, as a child's time is too precious to waste in the eleven 
or twelve weeks of vacation. There could then be no harm to al- 
low children to enter the school as soon as they could walk, and 
talk distinctly. On Sundays, the Sabbath schools could take up 
the theme, and teach them of the wonders of Nature and of Na- 
ture's God. 

It is perfectly amazing to reflect upon our deplorable educa- 
tional status, after the prodigious amount of writing, preaching, 
printing and talking, aiming at a higher, broader, more useful 
and less wordy education, from Aristotle down to the present. 
Pestalozzi and Froebel died martyrs to their theories, though at 
this late day they are awakening attention. I suppose others must 
follow, for who ever heard of a benefactor of the human race who 



8 

did not have to wade through fire before the Hstless masses could 
be made to see what he saw from the mountain top ? 

In 1832, forty seven years ago, the following report was made 
to the Legislature of this state, by a committee of that body : — 

1. ''That the expenses of education, when connected with man- 
ual labor judiciously directed, may be reduced one-half. 

2. "That the exercise of about three hours daily labor contri- 
butes to the health and cheerfulness of the pupil, by strengthening 
and improving his physical powers, and by engaging his mind in 
useful pursuits. 

3. ''That, so far from manual labor being an impediment in the 
progress of the pupil in intellectual studies, it has been found that 
in proportion as one pupil has excelled the other in the amount of 
labor performed, the same pupil has excelled the other, in equal 
ratio, in his intellectual studies. 

4. " That the manual labor institutions tend to break down the 
distinctions between rich and poor, which exist in society, inas- 
much as they give an almost equal opportunity of education to the 
poor, by labor, as is afforded to the rich by the possession of 
wealth : and 

5. "That pupils trained that way are much better fitted for 
active life, and better qualified to act as useful citizens than when 
educated in any other mode ; that they are better intellectually 
and morally." 

Why such a report as this should be allowed to take this long 
Rip- Van-Winkle sleep seems incomprehensible; but volumes have 
been written, the press daily teems with suggestions, message after 
message from those in authority, and yet but a small minority of 
our Board of Education seem to realize the seriou-^ responsibility 
of their position, and are fighting manfully, like heroes, in the good 
cause. 

Professor Huxley thus speaks of our present educational sys- 
tem : — 

"The educational abomination of desolation of the present 
day, is the stimulation of young people to work at high pressure, 
by incessant competitive examinations. The vigor and freshness 
which should have been stored up for the hard struggle for exist- 
ence in practical life, have been washed out of them by precocious 
mental debauchery, by book-gluttony and lesson-bibbing. Their 



faculties are worn out by the strain put upon their callow brains, 
and they are demoralized by worthless, childish triumphs, before 
the real work of life begins. I have no compassion for sloth, but 
youth has more need for intellectual rest than age ; and the cheer- 
fulness, the tenacity of purpose, the power of work, which make 
many a successful ^pian what he is, must often be placed to the 
credit, not of his hours of industry, but to that of his hours of idle- 
ness in boyhood. Even the hardest worker of us all, if he has to 
do with anything above mere detail, will do well, now and again, 
to let his brain lie fallow for a space. The next crop of thought 
will certainly be all the fuller in the ear, and the weeds the fewer." 

The London Medical Times and Gazette, for November, 1877, 
contains some statements from the last report of the Commission- 
ers of Lunacy, to the following effect : — 

** Ever since the year 1859 there has been a steady increase of 
insanity in England and Wales, amounting to more than one 
thousand annually. The largest number was in 1869, amounting 
to two thousand one hundred and seventy-seven ; the smallest in 
1875, which was only one thousand one hundred and twenty-three. 
During other years, the amount of increase ranged between these 
two numbers. From 1859 to 1876 the total of insane persons 
increased from thirty-six thousand seven hundred and sixty-two to 
sixty-six thousand six hundred and thirty-six. It is said the gene- 
ral population of England and Wales increases annually at the rate 
of one and a half per cent., while insanity and imbecility increase 
at the rate of three per cent. Probably, statistics would show a 
similar rate of increase in the United States." 

Maudsley says : — '* In the hard struggle for existence, men of 
inherited weakness, or some other debility, break down in madness. 
Overcrowding deteriorates 'health ; favors scrofula, phthisis, and 
faulty nutrition, — all of which open the way to insanity ; and 
whatever deteriorates mental or bodily health may lead to insanity 
in the next generation." 

Galton says : — '* Social agencies are unsuspectedly working 
towards the degeneration of humanity, and it is a duty we owe the 
race to study this power and to combat it to the advantage of the 
future inhabitants of the earth." He further says : — " With the 
deterioration of the condition of the masses, their organization and 
functions, there will be plenty of idiots, but very few great men ; 



lO 

the general standard of mind is but little above the grade of 
trained idiocy." 

A glance at the following figures will show the disproportionate 
increase of tiie insane in the United States. 
In fifty-four asylums, in 

iS39> 1)329 insane, with 961 annual new cases. 
1849, 7,029 " " 2,961 ** " " 

1859, 13,696 " " 5,342 " 

1869, 22,549 '* " 8,769 '' " ** 

" Our race is overweighted, and likely to be drudged into 
degeneracy, by demands that exceed its powers." 

" Is this lesson not plain enough, when the universally educated 
Scandinavians have 3.4 insane in one thousand population, the 
cultivated Germans 3 in one thousand, the less educated Roman 
nation i in one thousand, and the most barbarous Sclavonic races 
0.6 in one thousand ; and again, when the ratio of insane to the 
population in large cities is greater than in the country, and the 
professionally educated, who compose 5.04 per cent, of the popu- 
lation, yield 13.8 of all the insane ? If, then, our civilization and 
education are especially productive of human deterioration and 
insanity, is it not reasonable to ask that education should studi- 
ously avoid and oppose whatever degenerates mankind ? " 

In this country we certainly have no dearth of schools and col- 
leges, which aim at all conceivable objects, and must fall short of 
their full results, because they encourage only a partial education, 
one that is one-sided rather than symmetrical, of the intellect and 
not of the complete man. 

" It was not books, but thought, the discourse," says Thornton, 
*• that developed the Grecian mind." 

" In educated Massachusetts, we find in three hundred and 
sixty-four natives, one pauper, and in five hundred and forty-six, a 
convict, whilst one in every three hundred and forty-eight foreign 
born is a pauper, and one in every two hundred and fifty-two is a 
criminal." 

We must now glance at the other side of the question. 

" The eminent sanitarian and prison reformer. Dr. Harris, has 
carefully examined the personal relations of two hundred and thirty- 
three convicts. Fifty-four were found belonging to families in 
which insanity, epilepsy and other disorders of the nervous system 



II 

are reported. Eighty-three per cent, belonged to a criminal, pau- 
per, or inebriate stock, and were therefore hereditarily or congeni- 
tally affected ; and hence, nearly seventy-six per cent, of their 
number proved habitual criminals." 

The following is the fruit borne by the cheap education of a 
family. The four Juke sisters in the state of New' York, during 
seventy-five years. A regiment of six hundred unproductives, a 
loss and cost to the state of ;^ 1,308,000. 

New York has ;^50,ooo,ooo invested in various kinds of chari- 
table institutions, and spends yearly ;^ 1 0,000,000 for their support, 
with as much more for criminal prosecution and maintenance. 

Philadelphia gives in alms ^$4, 500,000 yearly to thousands in 
idleness and unproductiveness, except the bringing of more paupers 
into the world. Why not give the children of these a practical 
education, in the country, if possible, and put a stop to this unpro- 
ductive wastefulness. The millenium will never come until this is 
done. 

Ruskin says : " Though England is deafened with spinning 
wheels, her people have no clothes ; though she is black with dig- 
ging coal, her people have no fuel and they die of cold ; and 
though she has sold her soul for gain, they die of hunger." 

Thirty thousand persons own nearly all the land of England 
and Scotland, and what they do not reserve for parks and hunting 
grounds, or suffer to lie waste, is rented out to three hundred 
thousand tenants, and these in turn employ about four million la- 
borers, who are little else than paupers, and their ignorance keeps 
them so, and England's experience should teach us to beware of 
her example. Her ambition to manufacture for and carry on the 
commerce of the whole world, while benefitting the few, tends to 
the degradation of the masses. 

Let the people be educated to be producers as well as consu- 
mers, and we will not be troubled with the ugly problem of shirt- 
less backs and shoeless feet. 

Some of our state agricultural colleges — the industrial school 
at Hampton, Va., Cornell University, Boston Institute of Tech- 
nology, and others, — appear to have taken a long step forward in 
the right direction, in providing practical work in the field and 
workshop. Our own International Exhibition is now engaged in 
developing a splendid scheme for the practical education of our 



12 

youth, and I hope our citizens will give it cordial aid and encour- 
agement. The Philotechnic Institute of this city is also endeavor- 
ing to develop an improved system, by which the youngest child 
can acquire skill in the use of his hands with tools, at the same 
time he is acquiring information far more valuable than the wordy 
nonsense now taught. 

The Pantographic Model School, which was opened by this or- 
ganization last July, has been in active operation ever since, with 
an average attendance of twenty-five to thirty boys and girls, from 
fifteen to four years of age; but it is now in a deplorable condition, 
for lack of money. 

The public will encourage nothing until it is already an assured 
success, and to wait for the school board to take hold, as has been 
suggested, will be folly and consume another fifty years, as large 
bodies move slowly. 

After the most diligent effort, there has been raised ;^ 161.35. 
There should have been ;$i,ooo at least, — ;^5,ooo would be better, 
— to establish and run the school on thorough business principles. 

The school is finely located in an old hotel building (1608 and 
1 6 10 Ridge Avenue), of twenty rooms, but one of which is now 
occupied, and that is in a beggarly condition. There should be 
work going on in each one of these rooms, as was the design, if 
money and implements could be had. 

Says Prof. Royce : — " Every lover of America cannot but look 
with pleasure at the following table, which shows the growth of 
schools of science in the United States : — 
1870 1 87 1 1872 1873 
Schools, 17, 41, 70, 70, 

Teachers, 144, 303, 724, 749, 
Students, 1,413, 3,303, 5,395, 8,950, 7,244, 7,157, 7,614. 

" These schools of science are an almost infinite improvement 
upon the old Greek and Latin schools, which, in the vast majority 
of cases, do more injury than good ; and as these schools of sci- 
ence grow older, they will become more practical, and teach more 
science appHed than pure science, with which a graduate leaving 
the college cannot profit the world sufficiently to get in return for 
his services a modest meal. We have hardly any schools of indus- 
try ; and drawing, as useful, and even more so, as writing to 
every artisan, is but slowly making headway in our common 
schools, — the only ones the masses are able to attend." 



1874 


1875 


1876 


72, 


74, 


75 


609, 


758, 


793 



13 

" It is often expressed, that technical pursuits hardly merit the 
attention of men seeking comfortable living. If this was really so, 
and an efficient artisan could not make a decent living, incendi- 
arism and every disorganizing scheme against a society which 
refuses men a living for the labor it requires of them, would find 
almost an apology in such an unjustifiable condition. The fact is, 
we live in a crisis, in which a fat bank account, or even plenty of 
real estate, is no more security against want than labor is. An 
average annual importation of ^500,000,000 to ;^6oo,ooo,ooo worth 
of manufactured goods is evidence that we want more skilled men. 
The association of industry with the school and science, will raise 
it to the character of art, and infinitely vary it. No matter how 
much machinery produces, — as long as men work and exchange 
their products, they are benefitted. But that they may all have 
work, industry must take the character of art, which admits of an 
almost infinite variety and demand ; for, of course, with gigantic 
producing machinery, men cannot find employment in a few rude 
manufactures. An Arabic enamelled glass lamp, set up in the 
Louvre, became the support of hundreds of artisans modelling 
after it. 

'• An industry raised to the character of art not only gives 
bread to the masses, but, in purifying the taste of the people, it 
improves their morals, — for the beautiful and the good are but dif- 
ferent expressions of the same thing." 

** Our common schools better teach a little less of geography and 
a little more of Youman's Physiology and Hygiene; a little less 
of grammar and a little more of Youman's Household Science." 

** The subject matter of our education is not life, but literature ; 
the heroes of which we worship, while we neglect the only true 
hero of the world, — toiling humanity. The producing classes 
degenerate in mines and factories, and adulterations and artificial 
wants do their work on the consumer." 

Every square foot of ground that can be commanded, should be 
utilized and cultivated, for tilling the soil is the most healthful, 
morally and physically, of all work or exercise. 

What now of physical education ? It is all but totally neglected. 
Our daughters are taught no kind of work whereby their hands 
may be soiled ; consequently, they grow up to be delicate know- 
nothings, incapable of superintending a household, at the mercy of 



14 

ignorant and extravagant servants. The home becomes a sinking 
fund for the distracted husband, unattractive for him and the child- 
ren, who are driven elsewhere, from what ought to contain the 
pure atmosphere of the fireside, into haunts of vice. 

Girls suffer most from want of exercise ; boys will have it, even 
if they cannot get systematic work. Gymnastic exercises of a 
couple of half hours a week, in an unventil^ted class-room, with a 
dusty carpet on the floor, are almost if not quite useless. Every 
girl should graduate a practical, economical housekeeper, instead 
of having taste for all such exercises washed out of her by wordy 
lessons. 

Nature is ever restless, and nothing can be found in a state of 
perfect repose ; either generation or degeneration is constantly 
going on in everything. The flow from the country to town is 
constant and encouraged. Why is this ? Because our city popu- 
lation, through the education furnished them, is becoming so 
effeminate. All inclination for muscular and productive exercise 
has been lost, and our youth of both sexes are debilitated and con- 
sumptive, like a tree all turned to foliage, with no sap left for fruit. 
Those always found at the head of their classes have studied them- 
selves into their graves, or have become so diseased that they have 
no longer any capacity, and are never heard of more. It has been 
observed that nearly every male principal of grammar schools in 
Boston has been reared in the country, and I have no doubt this is 
largely the case in this city. This speaks well for our washed-out 
city graduates. 

It has been estimated that London, in two hundred years, would 
be depopulated, if it were not for the influx of people from the 
country. Ten thousand more die a year than are born there. 

General Walker gives the average life in the United States, in 
1870, at 39.25 : in New York and Philadelphia it is only twenty- 
five years. 

** The man who could devise a mode of combining manufac- 
turing skill with isolated labor and country residence, would do a 
greater service to humanity than the whole race of philosophers," 
says Samuel Royce. 

The eye-si: 'ht of a large percentage of our youth is ruined, and 
must seek the aid of the optician, for study or the looking upon the 
face of friend or o[ nature. 



15 

The prolonged concentration and bending of the head and eye 
over the printed page, especially the crowded maps, is injurious. 
Lessons should be acquired with an erect spine, eyes glancing a 
little upwards and not downwards ; a bad light, often coming from 
the front, instead of rear, complicates the malposition. 

" Germany is troubled because of the near-sightedness of its 
children. In Magdeburg, in the Dom Gymnasium (Cathedral 
School), Dr. Nieman has examined the eyes of six hundred and 
fifty pupils, and found in the sixth class 23, in the fifth 25, in the 
fourth 39, in the third 63, in the second 58, and in the fi.rst 95 per 
cent., of children who were myopic." 

" Examinations, under the direction of medical societies, of the 
eyes of several thousand school children in the cities of Buffalo, 
Brooklyn, New York and Cincinnati, have shown a similar degree 
of diseased eyes, and Dr. Agnew, of New York, suggests that the 
injured eyes are evidence of other injuries to the health of pupils." 
— Public Ledger. 

Mr. S. Shettuck, in a paper on the vital statistics of Boston, 
says : — The average value of life is greater now than during the 
last century, but not as great as it was twenty years ago. It was 
at its maximum from 181 1 to 1820, and since that time it has 
somewhat decreased. He also says that forty-three per cent., or 
nearly one half, of all the deaths that have taken place within the 
the last nine years, are of persons under under nine years of age, 
and the proportion has been increasing. The rate of mortality in 
cities is fearful, the result of unhealthy surroundings and inher- 
ited weakness, from those who have survived hitherto. *' In some 
cases only fifteen persons in a thousand live to be fifty years of 
age; " Royce says. ''Among the destitute of Manchester, England, 
of twenty-one thousand children, 20,700 die before they reach five 
years. The remnant who live to bear offspring will bring forth a 
sorry set of children." 

Bertha Meyer says:^ — *'As it was Adam's first sin only, that, 
according to the old theologians, cursed the world, so it is the 
wrongs inflicted upon children that determine the destiny of man." 

As a panacea for all the ills referred to, I would suggest and 
warmly advocate an industrial education. Let hand culture go on, 
side by side with head culture. I would, from the earliest child- 
hood, make it compulsory for all classes and conditions, as I am 



i6 

confident that without it we are deteriorating morally, physically, 
intellectually, and industrially. 

" In England, the reform in school work, as preventive of the 
physical injury done by over sedentary work, is claimed to have 
reduced the death rate one half." 

This industrial education has very little sympathy ; indeed, a 
great deal of determined opposition from school teachers and 
authorities generally. A Superintendent of Education in New 
Jersey does make this concession : — he favors industrial education, 
but says the present system must not be disturbed. A foolish 
remark, when the same demands all the school facilities, money, 
and every waking hour of the child's time. 

To get the proper teachers for this industrial training, is a mat- 
ter of some anxiety. I happen to know of a reformatory institu- 
tion for girls, in New Jersey, which was very much embarrassed in 
this respect. They could get a thousand, — yes, thousands of teach- 
ers of music, but not one competent person to teach these girls 
how to cut, make and mend their own clothes. This fact alone 
shows the improper direction of the training in our schools. 

It is observed that there are more unhappy marriages and 
divorces among school teachers than any other class of people. 
This can be accounted for, because house-keeping and home duties 
are entirely foreign to their education and habits. It is very diffi- 
cult to alter these after twelve or fifteen years of age. 

Our late Governor, General Hartranft, has repeatedly used lan- 
guage like the following, in his messages in favor of industrial 
training, and he encourages such schools both by precept and 
example. He says : — '* Everything that will tend to recognize the 
importance and dignity of labor, that will excite the pride and 
emulation of the artisan in his work, convince him of the interest 
of the state in his welfare and the welfare of his children, and 
secure the fruits of his industry and thrift, should be done ; and I 
am convinced that nothing will contribute so much to these results 
as the establishment of industrial and scientific schools and work- 
shops, by the side of our present high schools and academies." 

Monarchical countries are paying more and more attention to 
technical education, and very early youth is found the best time to 
begin ; for not only must the hand be taught to be dexterous, but 
the mind and taste must also receive their direction. All know 



17 

how exceedingly difificult it is for any one to acquire satisfactory 
use of the pen, after fifteen years of age : neither taste nor mechan- 
ical skill can be commanded. This same condition is observed in 
regard to mechanics, — in the taste, ability and power to perform. 
The modelling in clay, perforating and needle work on the card- 
board, cutting of paper into various forms and pasting them in 
fancied designs, printing, drawing, carving, sawing, lithographing, 
etc., are excellent exercises in the development of manual skill, 
making industry the rule and idleness the exception ; for, "As the • 
twig is bent, the tree inclines." 

Our school children ought to print and bind all their own school 
books, and, in fact, prepare all the material they make use of in 
the schools, and thereby lessen taxation many thousands of dollars, 
or, better, transferring this amount to the underpaid teachers. 
This plan would reach and influence a goodly portion of the school- 
less twenty thousand, inculcate industrious habits, and open a new 
field of practical instruction. Type-setting, and indeed all mechan- 
ical work, would convey more information and create a greater 
thirst for knowledge, than all the word memorizing. 

Some knowledge of the sciences would make of the artisan a 
much more intelligent workman, even in the single direction of 
hygiene, while an industrial course would be an excellent thing for 
those purely professional, making them more practical and less 
theoretical, and an increased sympathy would arise between the 
divisions of society ;— the upper classes with their pitiable effemi- 
nacy, and the lower classes with their boorish ignorance, — would 
be harmonized, and the present jealousies and misunderstandings 
would be unknown. To be a car driver is not considered a very 
desirable position, neither is that of a society man very elevating, 
but it is only on account of deficient intelligence. 

It has been said of the Kindergarten, that it is only good to 
amuse and entertain the children, without conveying any informa- 
tion ; never was there a greater mistake, for even the songs and 
plays are full of instruction. Our education should make the uni- 
verse a vast Kindergarten, full of suggestions for object teaching, 
if our education only taught us how to utilize them ; but at present 
we have failed to grasp the real idea of instruction, and mystify, by 
books, the lessons which Nature is ready to unfold to her children 
and enable them to see God's hand in the sunshine and tempest, 



i8 

earth, air and sky. We pass too much by, with closed eyes, which 
might be made a wide and beautiful field for mental and bodily 
culture, utilized for an industrial and economical purpose, not 
alone for childhood, but youth and maturity as well ! Light seems 
now, however, to be coming out of the darkness, and the day for 
industrial education to be drawing upon us, as a solution to the 
problem now vexing and filling us with anxious care. 

Prof. Royce says, the progress of the Kindergarten schools in 
the last three years is a guarantee of their ultimate success. 
There were but twelve in the United States in 187 1. The follow- 
ing table, taken from the commissioners last report, shows this 
growth in the last four years. 



1873 


1874 


1875 


1876 


Kindergartens, 42 


55 


95 


130 


Teachers, 73 


125 


216 


364 


Pupils, 1252 


1636 


2809 


4090 



" St. Louis has made a lively beginning of incorporating the 
Kindergarten system in the primary department of public instruc- 
tion. Boston has entered upon the same experiment. 

" The Kindergarten demands the highest capacity in the teacher, 
shows clearly the object of education and how to reach it, the 
teacher studying and developing the pupil, as books do not step 
in between the two and defeat the true object of education." 

'* The dwellings of the poor offer but little variety of impres- 
.sions, and yield but little food to the perceptive powers. The im- 
agination, the will, the aesthetic faculty, and the social virtues have 
no chance at all in the isolation of the dwellings of the poor, where 
the dear little ones are not infrequently locked up as brutes in 
cages, while the parents are out to work." 

*' A sorrowful child, full of unkindness and misfortune, develops, 
among the lowest class, a ferocity which startles from the commis- 
sion of no crime. An unhappy childhood is often the cause of a 
wrong life, for it perverts the judgment and natural feelings of man ; 
depression impairs the functions and lowers the tone of body and 
mind." 

** Infant schools cannot but become worse than useless, when 
children are taught in them in the manner of: 

G, is for Goshen, a rich and good land, 
H, is for Horeb, where Moses stand. 



19 

I, is for Italy, where Rome stands so fair, 

J, is for Joppa and Peter lodged there. 

K, is for Kadesh, where Mirian died, 

L, is for Lebanon, can't be denied." 
If I were restricted to the selection of a solitary study for a 
child's entire education, I would unhesitatingly choose drawing, as 
being at once the most instructive, profitable, pleasurable. If I 
were allowed the choice of another, it would be physiology, as it 
would teach how to live intelligently, instead of violating, as is the 
custom, the laws of health ; and if I were allowed a third study, I 
would confidently choose the natural sciences, as they would teach a 
child to observe and reflect, and give him a taste for open air exer- 
cises and recreations. With these three alone, a child could be 
safely launched out into the world and become an intelligent and 
useful member of society. All other necessary information could 
and would be acquired spontaneously, and, instead of having a 
nation of trained idiots, as has been said of us by a distinguished 
writer, we would have a nation of trained thinkers. 

Parents clamor vociferously for the cramming of the three R's 
into their children's brains, the very first thing, and if it is not being 
done at lightning speed, they are snatched at once from an intelli- 
gent teacher and given to one who has less soul, character and 
ability. Our ablest teachers and thinkers unite in condemning 
this obsolete cramming system. Lord Brougham says, a child 
learns more before six years of age than ever after, no matter how 
long it may live, and what he says must be respected, for he was 
a clear and correct observer and thinker. How careful should we 
be that these first six years be spent to the very best advantage, 
placing our children under the care of the most cultivated, loving 
and well balanced person we can find. 

The excellent health our Kindergarten children enjoy is remark- 
able. They lose comparatively no time on account of sickness, 
except from that incident to childhood. With the proper kind 
of food and care at home, a child's health is greatly improved. 

It has been found that the children who spend a portion of each 
day in even the monotonous factory work and in the school-room, 
suffer from neither kind of labor. They average mentally with 
others, while their bodily functions are maintained thereby in a 
superior condition. Long hours of either mental or physical work 
are highly detrimental, to youth especially. 



20 

Dr. D. F. Lincoln, one of the indefatigable workers in the cause 
of school reform, argues, on good authority, that the growing 
adult of average power at the age of twenty, may devote not more 
than eight or nine hours to close mental work ; the youth in high 
schools, five or six ; the younger child, from two and a half to four 
and a half; no greater amount can be exacted of the average with- 
out doing harm." But in our schools the rules of health are 
entirely disregarded, through the ignorance and thoughtlessness of 
those in authority. Our youngest children spend five hours a day 
in the school-room, and most of them as many more at their 
homes preparing their lessons ; but parents take a cruel pride in 
their precocious children, foolishly insisting on their promotion, 
each examination term ; teachers and scholars think only of high 
averages and promotions ; the average director does not give the 
matter a thought or a care, and the children are ground between 
the upper and nether millstone. 

To this reformed education, then, may the thoughts of our 
people be turned as a necessity, to be united with every plan of 
development. 

We must now close this very imperfect discussion of this many- 
sided question, with a very appropriate extract from the able pen 
of Rev. Charles G. Ames. He says : — " But the best proof of our 
loyal interest in education will next come from unsparing thorough- 
ness in dealing with the defects of our present system. Too much 
books and too little nature ; too much nerve strain and too little 
industrial training ; too much routine and too little inspiration ; 
too much memorizing and too little reasoning ; too extensive and 
superficial a curriculum and too little care in the formation of char- 
acter; too many mercenaries in the rank of teachers, and too little 
sympathy and human kindness ; too much partisan politics in the 
management, and too li'ttle cooperation on the part of parents. 
All these must receive attention, ere the people reap half the bene- 
fits of their own liberal sowing."* 

A. C. Rembaugh, M. D. 

* I am greatly indebted to Herbert Spencer's work " Education,''^ and to Deteriora- 
tion and Race Education, by Samuel Royce, published by Lee & vShepard, Boston, for 
much of the information given in this paper. They well repay a reading. 



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